11/20/2013

Google's Street View may have already taken us on a virtual tour of some US national parks, but its total number of natural sites now sits at an impressive 44 US and Canadian locations. With permission from the US National Park Service and Parks Canada, the search giant's cars, trikes and backpack-worn Trekker units have mapped some of most picturesque and historical sites in North America, providing us with new 360-degree views of Mount Rushmore, the Alamo Mission in Texas and the crystal-clear lakes of Banff National Park, to name but a few. All of these different locations -- with multiple trails -- are online now and you can check them out by hitting the source below.

11/17/2013

President Barack Obama is a "flagrant liar," said Joe Scarborough, host of the "Morning Joe" program on MSNBC.

That's unquestionably true, as Mr. Obama is demonstrating yet again by lying about the big lie he told to get Obamacare passed. But it's startling to hear an MSNBC talk show host say it.

The president has been able to lie with impunity, confident that most of the "mainstream" media would never call him on his ever more frequent, ever more blatant departures from the truth. But the botched rollout of Obamacare is changing things.

"It might not seem possible that President Obama could do more harm to his credibility and the public's faith in government than misleading Americans about health insurance reform," wrote Ron Fournier of the National Journal. "But he can. The president is now misleading the public about his deception."

Mr. Fournier is referring to what Mr. Obama said in a speech to supporters Monday night: "Now, if you have or had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you can keep it if it hasn't changed since the law passed."

If it were possible to scream in print, Mr. Fournier did. "No, no, no, no, no -- that's not what the Obama administration said," he wrote.

"What they said was: 'That means that no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.'"

There is video of the president himself making this promise on at least 29 separate occasions. His aides and Democrats on Capitol Hill made it dozens of times more.

It was a lie from the get-go. The Department of Health and Human Services estimated in June of 2010 that as a consequence of Obamacare, 66 percent of those covered by small-employer plans and 45 percent of those covered by large employer plans would have to get new policies. So would "40 to 67 percent" of those who had individual health insurance coverage. That could add up to 93 million Americans.

The latest assault on the truth is Health and Human Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' ruling that neither the federal insurance exchange established by the law nor the subsidies for low-income people paid to insurance companies will be classified as "federal health care programs."

Ms. Sebelius did not give a rationale for her decision. The effect of it is to exempt Obamacare from laws which forbid kickbacks and related types of fraud in other federal health care programs such as Medicare.

Just about everything we've been told about Obamacare -- beginning with its formal name, the "Affordable Care Act" -- has been untrue. Premiums will rise an average of 41 percent, excluding federal subsidies, according to a Manhattan Institute study released last week.

To avoid acknowledging this, many in the news media twist themselves into knots. The president "clearly misspoke" when he said "if you like your health plan, you can keep it," said the editors of The New York Times.

The dictionary defines "misspeaking" as a "slip of the tongue." Odd the president's tongue would slip every time he made a promise about Obamacare. Odder still that each of these "slips of the tongue" should produce not a slurred or mispronounced word, but full sentences containing the opposite of the truth.

The president's "misspeaking" is no big deal, said The Times. The policies being cancelled were "not worth keeping."

I doubt many of the 3.5 million Americans who have received cancellation notices so far share that view. One who doesn't is cancer survivor Edie Sundby, who wrote in the Wall Street Journal Tuesday she fears the loss of her health plan and perhaps some of her doctors amounts to a sentence of death.

Ms. Sunby's plight illustrates another thing about which the president "misspoke." The "Obamacare War Room" fears the "next shoe to drop" will be when millions of Americans discover they won't be able to keep their doctors, CNN reported Monday.

Mr. Obama will continue to lie brazenly, and many journalists will keep trying to cover for him. But too many Americans are suffering too much harm for most in the "mainstream" media to ignore.

On MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program Tuesday, historian Jon Meacham said the president needs to "understand that we're really not as slow as he thinks we are."

Jack Kelly is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio.

11/14/2013

EMC's long-awaited entry into all-flash storage arrays will finally get a full-fledged rollout next week, possibly setting the terms for mastery of the fledgling product category along the way.

The array, acquired through EMC's purchase of startup XtremIO about 18 months ago, is designed so that enterprises can steadily build up their capacity and performance to keep up with growing demand. Each so-called X-Brick in an XtremIO cluster comes with two controllers to ensure high availability. Adding a new X-Brick brings in two more controllers along with the additional capacity, and the power of all the controllers gets pooled across the cluster.

XtremIO's long journey from acquisition to general availability created some suspense as EMC, the most dominant storage player, prepared its first array designed exclusively for flash. Many enterprises are adopting solid-state storage in various forms, but all-flash arrays can realize more of the technology's performance edge than do systems that combine spinning disks and flash.

EMC's entry comes in the form of an x86-based device one rack unit high with 10TB of storage capacity. Another 1U model with 20TB is coming next year. Each box has 256GB of memory, which can be pooled across a cluster of as many as eight X-Bricks for a total of 2TB of memory, said Josh Goldstein, vice president of marketing and product management for XtremIO. The system includes in-line data deduplication for efficiency, and data is distributed across the cluster for load balancing. Infiniband links the X-Bricks, using RDMA (remote direct memory access) to distribute incoming blocks of data among controllers and reassemble the data to be read.

Other all-flash arrays allow enterprises to add storage capacity but have a set number of controllers, so the strain on those controllers grows as more storage is hooked up, Goldstein said.

The XtremIO architecture should make storage performance predictable as enterprises scale out their arrays, which can make life easier for IT departments, Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Mark Peters said. It's even more important than the top I/O speed that a system can hit, he added.

"Any user can deal with just about anything from their equipment as long as it's predictable," Peters said.

Not knowing how fast an application or VM will get the data that it needs can make it harder for enterprises or service providers to meet service level agreements, and it can force them to buy more capacity than they really need just to make sure they're covered, Peters said.

By focusing on predictability, EMC is giving customers something useful but also shaping the conversation about all-flash arrays through sheer market share, Peters said. EMC could have emphasized another characteristic, such as maximum I/O performance or integration with management tools, but didn't.

"EMC is defining the playing field in an area that really suits them," Peters said.

Startups and other mainstream storage vendors, including NetApp and IBM (through its Texas Memory Systems buyout) are also moving into all-flash arrays. But EMC's entry puts critical mass behind the market, Peters said. "The story of the joy of flash is going to be told more aggressively ... than it was before," Peters said.

XtremIO will allow CMA Consulting Services to more easily build Oracle rack clusters with storage for its clients in health care and human services, said Brian Dougherty, CMA's chief architect. The Oracle clusters include Linux servers, InfiniBand interconnects and storage.

"Traditionally, the storage nodes, for us, have been more of the monolithic, larger storage arrays that we would configure and pre-deliver. But now the storage node for us will be the XtremIO X-Brick," Dougherty said. The X-Brick can deliver the same capacity and performance in far less space and be scaled out in the same linear way as the computing element, making for easier expansion, he said. Using all flash is more expensive, but the savings in build time, rack space and power more than make up for that, he said.

What Dougherty still wants to see is more density, coming in the 20TB array next year, and software for continuously replicating to a peer XtremIO cluster at a disaster-recovery site.

The XtremIO system will be generally available beginning next Tuesday. It took this long to reach the general market because EMC bought the technology in progress and had to finish it, Goldstein said. Shipping an EMC product also takes more preparation than putting out gear from a startup, he said, speaking from the experience of having worked at several startups, including XtremIO. Manufacturing capacity, quality assurance and channel training are all parts of the process, he said.

Emerging from under the temporary moniker Project X in March, the XtremIO system was released in April under "directed availability," in which EMC qualified the customers that wanted to buy it. Hundreds of these IT shops have deployed XtremIO arrays in production environments, Goldstein said.

Enterprises have already been able to deploy some EMC arrays, including the latest version of its VNX platform, entirely with flash storage. But the VNX is designed as a hybrid system. XtremIO is the high end of EMC's arrays in terms of performance, intended for enterprises with highly demanding applications such as virtual desktops and online transaction processing. EMC would not disclose pricing.

11/11/2013

First, the bad news - Lil Johny Hendricks does not make an encore appearance on episode two of UFC Primetime: St. Pierre vs. Hendricks. The good news is that there's still plenty of behind the scenes footage of both the champion and challenger's training camps.

UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre defends his title against Johny Hendricks Nov. 16 at UFC 167. If you missed the first episode, click here.

Episode two starts of with St. Pierre and his head coach Firas Zihabi attempting to dispel the retirement rumors that they essentially started themselves. "I just bought an Octagon," St. Pierre attests.

"If I wanted to retire I wouldn't have invested that type of money. I love my every day routine."

In this episode of UFC Primetime, we also get a look at the Hendricks household and see the husband and father that also inhabits the KO artist body of Johny Hendricks. One of the more interesting parts of episode two for us was the time spent with St. Pierre's head coach Zihabi.

Up to this point, not much has been made known about the young trainer other than the great success of his fighters. In this episode we learn how and why Zihabi made the transition from promising amateur Muay Thai fighter to full time coach.

All this plus a glimpse of St. Pierre's boxing training and Hendricks' strength and conditioning regimen and much more in the video above. One more episode to go and then, of course, the main event title clash on Nov. 16 at UFC 167.

11/07/2013

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, talks to reporters after the Senate cleared a major hurdle and agreed to proceed to debate a bill that would prohibit workplace discrimination against gay, bisexual and transgender Americans, at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, Nov. 4, 2013. The bipartisan vote increases the chances that the Senate will pass the bill by week's end, but its prospects in the Republican-led House are dimmer. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, talks to reporters after the Senate cleared a major hurdle and agreed to proceed to debate a bill that would prohibit workplace discrimination against gay, bisexual and transgender Americans, at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, Nov. 4, 2013. The bipartisan vote increases the chances that the Senate will pass the bill by week's end, but its prospects in the Republican-led House are dimmer. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Fifty-four members of the Democratic majority and 10 Republicans voted Thursday for the first major gay rights bill since Congress repealed the ban on gays in the military three years ago. The vote in favor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act was 64-32.

Two opponents of a similar measure 17 years ago, Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, the presidential nominee in 2008, and Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, backed the measure this time.

"We are about to make history in this chamber," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine and a chief sponsor of the bill, said shortly before the vote.

The enthusiasm of the bill's supporters was tempered by the reality that the Republican-led House, where conservatives have a firm grip on the agenda, is unlikely to even vote on the legislation. Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, maintains his longstanding opposition to the measure, arguing that it is unnecessary and certain to create costly, frivolous lawsuits for businesses.

Outside conservative groups have cast the bill as anti-family.

President Barack Obama welcomed the vote and urged the House to act.

"One party in one house of Congress should not stand in the way of millions of Americans who want to go to work each day and simply be judged by the job they do," Obama said in a statement. "Now is the time to end this kind of discrimination in the workplace, not enable it."

Gay rights advocates hailed Senate passage as a major victory in a momentous year for the issue. The Supreme Court in June granted federal benefits to legally married same-sex couples, though it avoided a sweeping ruling that would have paved the way for same-sex unions nationwide. Illinois is on the verge of becoming the 15th state to legalize gay marriage along with the District of Columbia.

Supporters called the bill the final step in a long congressional tradition of trying to stop discrimination, coming nearly 50 years after enactment of the Civil Rights Act and 23 years after the Americans with Disabilities Act.

"Now we've finished the trilogy," Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, a chief sponsor of the disabilities law, said at a Capitol Hill news conference.

The first openly gay senator, Democrat Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, called the vote a "tremendous milestone" that she will always remember throughout her time in the Senate.

Democrats echoed Obama in pushing for the House to act, with Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois reminding the GOP leader of the history of his party.

"The Republican Party in the United States of America came into being in the 1980s over the issue of slavery, and the man who embodied the ideals of that Republican Party was none other than Abraham Lincoln, who gave his life for his country to end discrimination," Durbin said. "Keep that proud Republican tradition alive."

In the Senate, opponents of the legislation remained mute through three days of debate, with no lawmaker speaking out. That changed on Thursday, as Republican Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana said the legislation would force employers to violate their religious beliefs, a direct counter to rights embodied in the Constitution.

"There's two types of discrimination here we're dealing with, and one of those goes to the very fundamental right granted to every American through our Constitution, a cherished value of freedom of expression and religion," Coats said.

The Senate rejected an amendment sponsored by Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania that would have expanded the number of groups that are covered under the religious exemption. Opponents argued that it would undermine the core bill.

If the House fails to act on the bill, gay rights advocates are likely to press Obama to act unilaterally and issue an executive order barring anti-gay workplace discrimination by federal contractors.

Backers of the bill repeatedly described it as an issue of fairness.

"It is well past time that we, as elected representatives, ensure that our laws protect against discrimination in the workplace for all individuals, that we ensure ... some protections for those within the LGBT community," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who described the diversity in her state.

Murkowski's support underscored the generational shift. Seventeen years ago, when a bill dealing with discrimination based on sexual orientation failed by one vote in the Senate, the senator's father, Frank, voted against it. That was the same year that Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act.

Current federal law prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, race and national origin. But it doesn't stop an employer from firing or refusing to hire workers because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

The bill would bar employers with 15 or more workers from using a person's sexual orientation or gender identity as the basis for making employment decisions, including hiring, firing, compensation or promotion. It would exempt religious institutions and the military.

By voice vote Wednesday, the Senate approved an amendment from Republican Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire that would prevent federal, state and local governments from retaliating against religious groups that are exempt from the law.

Likely Senate approval of the overall bill reflects the nation's growing tolerance of gays and the GOP's political calculation as it looks for support beyond its core base of older voters. A Pew Research survey in June found that more Americans said homosexuality should be accepted rather than discouraged by society by a margin of 60 percent to 31 percent. Opinions were more evenly divided 10 years ago.

Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia have approved laws banning workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and 17 of those also prohibit employers from discriminating based on gender identity.

About 88 percent of Fortune 500 companies have adopted nondiscrimination policies that include sexual orientation, according to the Human Rights Campaign. About 57 percent of those companies include gender identity.

Nitrogen isotope effects by anammox deciphered

A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, the University of Basel, and Radboud University Nijmegen has now revealed the details of an important microbial process regulating the global nitrogen budget in the oceans. They present their results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Every organism needs nitrogen to survive and grow. Many organisms do not have the ability to obtain nitrogen from molecular nitrogen (N2), the major component in the atmosphere. They do not have the nitrogen fixation pathway and have to rely on supply of nitrogen that has been fixed by others. The availability of fixed nitrogen, in the form of ammonium, nitrite and nitrate, consequently often limits primary production in the environment (one of the reasons why many fertilizers are rich in fixed nitrogen).

However, there are microbial processes that convert fixed nitrogen back to N2 (production of energy instead of growth). Scientists call this process loss of fixed nitrogen, because it removes the important fixed nitrogen from the environment, and thereby limits primary productivity (i.e. production of biomass). These nitrogen-loss processes, which are carried out by different types of microbes, include the reduction of nitrogen compounds like nitrate and nitrite, the oxidation of ammonium, and a process that combines nitrite and ammonium to form N2, the anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox).

In the water column of the ocean, these nitrogen-loss processes are most prominent in water bodies, known as oxygen minimum zones (OMZs), where dissolved oxygen (O2) is rapidly consumed almost to completion. There is major concern that such OMZs will expand in the future due to climate change, which could have a massive impact on the amount of nitrogen lost from the marine realm, affecting the primary productivity in the ocean.

For these reasons, it is important to know which microbial process is responsible for what part of the observed nitrogen-loss, and where this process happens within OMZs.

Ben Brunner, one of the three main authors, explains: "We can answer this question with the help of stable nitrogen isotopes, by looking at the ratio between the stable isotopes 15N and 14N in the different pools of fixed N and in the produced N2, because different microbial processes leave different N isotope fingerprints; some prefer the light isotope 14N over the heavier isotope 15N, and others do the opposite." Sergio Contreras, a (paleo) biogeochemist interested in the past and future of the Nitrogen cycling, continues: "However, the prerequisite to decipher the N isotope signatures in the environment is to know the isotope fingerprint of the individual nitrogen-loss processes".

Moritz Lehmann, isotope biogeochemist from the University of Basel, adds: "This is where so far, there was a gaping hole in our knowledge. The isotope effects of one major N-loss process, namely anammox, were unknown, and previous N-isotope based assessments of fixed N loss rates in the global ocean may have been severely biased."

Boran Kartal, microbiologist at Radboud University Nijmegen, explains: "We used the highly enriched cultures that are available in our laboratory to determine the nitrogen isotope effects of anammox bacteria. Our findings show that the isotope effects induced by anammox can explain isotope signatures observed in the OMZs, which are very important primary production sites in the oceans."

Marcel Kuypers, director at the Max Planck Institute, summarizes: "This missing piece of information is of utmost importance to solve the nitrogen isotope puzzle, not only because anammox is an important process in OMZs, but also because anammox simultaneously affects the nitrogen isotope composition of all nitrogen pools of interest: it converts ammonium and nitrite to N2 and nitrate."

Through their joint effort the scientists were able to decipher the intricate isotope fingerprint of anammox. Their results, published in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, reconcile so far mysterious N isotope patterns from OMZ, and provide the missing piece to solve the nitrogen isotope puzzle for fixed N-loss from the environment.

Nitrogen isotope effects by anammox deciphered

A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, the University of Basel, and Radboud University Nijmegen has now revealed the details of an important microbial process regulating the global nitrogen budget in the oceans. They present their results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Every organism needs nitrogen to survive and grow. Many organisms do not have the ability to obtain nitrogen from molecular nitrogen (N2), the major component in the atmosphere. They do not have the nitrogen fixation pathway and have to rely on supply of nitrogen that has been fixed by others. The availability of fixed nitrogen, in the form of ammonium, nitrite and nitrate, consequently often limits primary production in the environment (one of the reasons why many fertilizers are rich in fixed nitrogen).

However, there are microbial processes that convert fixed nitrogen back to N2 (production of energy instead of growth). Scientists call this process loss of fixed nitrogen, because it removes the important fixed nitrogen from the environment, and thereby limits primary productivity (i.e. production of biomass). These nitrogen-loss processes, which are carried out by different types of microbes, include the reduction of nitrogen compounds like nitrate and nitrite, the oxidation of ammonium, and a process that combines nitrite and ammonium to form N2, the anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox).

In the water column of the ocean, these nitrogen-loss processes are most prominent in water bodies, known as oxygen minimum zones (OMZs), where dissolved oxygen (O2) is rapidly consumed almost to completion. There is major concern that such OMZs will expand in the future due to climate change, which could have a massive impact on the amount of nitrogen lost from the marine realm, affecting the primary productivity in the ocean.

For these reasons, it is important to know which microbial process is responsible for what part of the observed nitrogen-loss, and where this process happens within OMZs.

Ben Brunner, one of the three main authors, explains: "We can answer this question with the help of stable nitrogen isotopes, by looking at the ratio between the stable isotopes 15N and 14N in the different pools of fixed N and in the produced N2, because different microbial processes leave different N isotope fingerprints; some prefer the light isotope 14N over the heavier isotope 15N, and others do the opposite." Sergio Contreras, a (paleo) biogeochemist interested in the past and future of the Nitrogen cycling, continues: "However, the prerequisite to decipher the N isotope signatures in the environment is to know the isotope fingerprint of the individual nitrogen-loss processes".

Moritz Lehmann, isotope biogeochemist from the University of Basel, adds: "This is where so far, there was a gaping hole in our knowledge. The isotope effects of one major N-loss process, namely anammox, were unknown, and previous N-isotope based assessments of fixed N loss rates in the global ocean may have been severely biased."

Boran Kartal, microbiologist at Radboud University Nijmegen, explains: "We used the highly enriched cultures that are available in our laboratory to determine the nitrogen isotope effects of anammox bacteria. Our findings show that the isotope effects induced by anammox can explain isotope signatures observed in the OMZs, which are very important primary production sites in the oceans."

Marcel Kuypers, director at the Max Planck Institute, summarizes: "This missing piece of information is of utmost importance to solve the nitrogen isotope puzzle, not only because anammox is an important process in OMZs, but also because anammox simultaneously affects the nitrogen isotope composition of all nitrogen pools of interest: it converts ammonium and nitrite to N2 and nitrate."

Through their joint effort the scientists were able to decipher the intricate isotope fingerprint of anammox. Their results, published in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, reconcile so far mysterious N isotope patterns from OMZ, and provide the missing piece to solve the nitrogen isotope puzzle for fixed N-loss from the environment.

11/02/2013

Everything you need to know to get your contacts, calendars, photos, music, and more off your old Android tablet and onto your brand new iPad Air or Retina iPad mini

If you're coming from an Android tablet to a new iPad Air or Retina iPad mini, the transfer process isn't as easy as it is for current iOS users but it definitely isn't impossible either. Whether you just want to transfer contacts or you need to get calendars, movies, music, and more onto your new iPad, we can help you do it as painlessly as possible. Here's how:

Google, Facebook, and Twitter

Many cloud services including Google's native ones, Facebook, Twitter, and more can store your contacts, calendars, and much more for you. Cross-platform supported services such as Google, Exchange, or Yahoo! are all supported in iOS 7, which for you means minimal effort in importing all of your data. It's as easy as entering your credentials for any of the supported services that can be found within the iOS 7 Settings menu, and toggling which data you want to pull in; mail, contacts, calendars, and in some cases, even notes. They are already stored in the cloud just waiting for you to access them on your new iPad.

If you rely on Facebook and Twitter for many of your contacts, then that's just fine too. iOS 7 can natively pull down contact data from both services into the Contacts app. Head into the Settings menu for each of them, and tell it to Update Contacts and you're good to go.

Store your images with Dropbox

Dropbox is available for both Android and iOS and offers an automatic upload feature for images. If you enable this on your existing Android device, getting your photos to your new iPad Air or Retina iPad mini is as simple as downloading and signing into the Dropbox for iOS app.

On your Android device, just install the Dropbox app from Google Play if you don't have it already. The first time you launch it, you'll be asked if you'd like to upload your photos. Say yes. If you already have Dropbox on your Android phone but don't have automatic uploads turned on, you can do so through Settings.

The old fashioned way

If, like me, you like keeping a hard copy of your contacts on your computer, or don't trust cloud syncing, you can export your contacts from your Android phone as a .vcf file, and import that into either the Contacts app on your Mac, or into Contacts at iCloud.com

Start with your Android tablet or phone in hand and complete the following steps:

Launch the Contacts app.

Hit the Menu button.

Find the Import/Export option and select it.

Choose the option to export your contacts to storage.

Now either manually pull it from your phone to your computer or email it to yourself.

Once you've got the file containing your contacts you can either open it in the Contacts app on your Mac or upload it to iCloud.com.

We recommend storing this file somewhere safe too just in case you ever need it again.

Using Android File Transfer for Mac

If you use a Windows PC, then getting data from your Android device using your computer will be straight forward enough. If you use a Mac, you'll need to use the often horrendous Android File Transfer app (download links below.) This provides an interface with your Mac for you to browse the files and folders on your Android device, and copy them to your Mac if need be. Since certain files, and images can be imported to your iPhone via iTunes, this might be the quickest way of moving things between the two devices.

Google Apps on iOS are plentiful

Perhaps the easiest way to transition to iOS from Android is to make full use of the plethora of Google apps available in the App Store. Everything from Gmail and Chrome to Chromecast and Google TV remote are available, and Google is currently pushing out a single sign-on feature between the more popular ones. Aside from Android, iOS is the next best place to get your Google fix in the mobile world.

These are good apps too, really good apps. Google makes some of the best looking apps on iOS, many of which have already been updated with official support for iOS 7. If you live and breath Google services, you're in good hands with Google's official iOS apps. Here are some of the most common ones. And there's more where that came from!

Still need help?

The iMore Forums are here to help! We've covered a few of the easiest ways to get up and running on your new iPad if you've made the jump from an Android tablet, but the forums are a great place to go for more tips and guidance. Likewise if you know a trick or two, jump in and help out others who find themselves switching from Android to iPad and iOS 7.

Retina iPad mini The world's most popular tiny tablet goes Retina. Features include:

10/30/2013

This coming Sunday's New York Times magazine blows the lid off of an Apple conspiracy more outrageous than a dozen Foxconns. Cracking the Apple Trap, it's called in the print edition. Why Apple Wants to Bust Your Phone, online. But in our hearts, let it be known only as Uhh... Seriously? Time to sigh together, point by point.

Why do lamps have to stand apart from the surfaces you're trying to light? That was a question noodling around the mind of German design student Simon Frambach, who ultimately came up with the Soft Light, a thick, flexible lampshade that can be shoved into dark corners, furniture gaps or even used as a pillow.

"To me it is fascinating how one little alteration (the softness) can really change the whole concept of a product that surrounds us," Frambach explained to Design Milk.

Frambach made the Soft Light with squishy, polyurethane foam on a device he created for rotational milling. An energy-saving light bulb, protected by a cage, illuminates the porous foam from the inside.

You can't purchase the Soft Light just yet. It's currently a prototype and being shown at design shows in Europe, where it's winning awards.

10/24/2013

If you hadn't noticed already, severalcompanies believe there's a market for smart spectacles that do more than your standard head-mounted display. Microsoft is allegedly revisiting the idea, and now a design patent recently approved in South Korea indicates Samsung may have other wearable aspirations (shocker) beyond its relatively new Gear smartwatch. It's easy to draw comparisons to Google Glass when looking at the sketch above -- a similar near-eye display appears to feature here, after all -- but the claims don't exactly indicate a potential rival to the search specialist's eyewear. Referred to as "sports glasses" in the patent, they're described as having integrated earphones for listening to music, can act as a hands-free headset for taking calls, and will display notification alerts while you're exercising. All this is achieved by pairing the specs with a smartphone, of course, and apparently via a physical micro-USB link, of all things. If Samsung is thinking about developing these (it's just a sketch, folks), a small word of advice: make sure they work with more than one smartphone. More pics after the break.